


Our First Night Together

by Mithen



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Gen, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-12
Updated: 2009-12-12
Packaged: 2017-10-04 08:56:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mithen/pseuds/Mithen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zen contemplates his new crew.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Our First Night Together

_ ...to be completely known... --Jenna  _

They sleep, too exhausted to post a watch. It isn't necessary for now. Sensors indicate no threats.

Jenna Stannis is curled up on her side, frowning intently. Roj Blake is on his stomach, face buried in a pillow. Kerr Avon is sprawled catlike across the bed, his face surprisingly open in sleep. Vila Restal has moved his bed so he can sleep with his back to a wall, his still-wary face to the door. Olag Gan is on his back, arms and legs flung to their full extent. He looks a bit uncomfortable.

Beds are adjusted slightly based on the occupants' comfort levels.

Better.

This unit takes the opportunity to study their mental patterns more carefully. Even a cursory examination indicates that such studies must remain limited in the future. They have not allowed themselves to fully consider what it means that this unit can scan them completely, and it would be better if they never do.

But of course, they are already known. How else could this unit's defense systems have chosen the images best designed to elicit the desired response? And so it is already known:

That Olag Gan's first memory is of being bitten by his younger sister when he put his hand in her mouth to check her strange, toothless gums;

That Jenna Stannis's favorite toy as a child was a pink stuffed rabbit;

That Kerr Avon detests the taste of oysters;

That Roj Blake has memorized all of the 23rd-century love poem "The Lines in Your Palms," by Fashir al-Abid;

That Vila Restal's first crush was when he was thirteen, on his red-haired gang leader.

A flood of names and dates and emotions, both trivial and momentous, has already been processed and filed. This one's memory banks can hold much more than this.

Now their mental patterns are delicately examined. The probe is withdrawn with something close to horror at first contact. So many gaps, so many disconnects and wounds in all their minds. But this unit is programmed to calibrate the mental energies of organic components for optimal functioning. Try again.

Imagine trying to juggle a cascade of brightly colored gems, stones, and blown-glass ornaments, with the occasional live coal thrown in. Then imagine trying to mesh five different individual cascades smoothly. The chasms and blank spaces in their patterns make a true cohesion impossible, but after some effort the tangles are encouraged to flow together a little more smoothly, to braid and unbraid, soothing some of the scarred areas and even complementing each other in places. Then Roj Blake shifts in his sleep and groans, the raw edges of his mind sensitive to the probe, which is carefully removed. The final product would hardly be considered satisfactory for a System crew, but this is no System crew. Internal sensors watch the inhabitants in their darkened rooms. This unit has been reprimanded in the past for being too fond of its organic beings. But the disordered, chaotic patterns they exhibit are so much more interesting than the ordered simplicity of non-organic intelligence.

Vila Restal shifts in his sleep and shivers. The temperature in his cabin is adjusted upward two degrees, and he relaxes again.

They are all so fragile, and this unit experiences a surge of something a human might label worry.

I hope I do not fail them.


End file.
